What they need is some arguments - not ridiculous, and frankly odd comparisons.

Those AV posters are driving me up the wall.

I don't know if you've noticed the billboards with anti-Alternative-Vote messages across them, but they may just be the most empty arguments in the run-up to a referendum I've ever seen.

If you haven't had the chance to catch one, it basically goes like this. Firstly we see the image of the archetypal British figure of sickeningly patronising respect, such as a soldier or a policemen. I'm not having a go at either the army or the police force, I think they do a good job. But the amount of times I see the picture of a soldier drawn into an irrelevancy purely for emotive effect genuinely angers me.

Then next to it we have the text. "He needs a bulletproof vest... not AV".

WHAT!!! THAT'S THE BEST YOU CAN DO???!?!?

It doesn't make sense. I know he needs a bulletproof vest. Sure, go get him one. But seriously, it's not like if we do implement Alternative Vote, we'll be so busy furrowing our brows at the polling station that we'll forget to arm our troops and they'll be massacred thanks to this evil system. They aren't related. We can have both. It's like having a picture of an African child and saying "He needs food and water... not David Cameron". It's utterly stupid

I mean, really. I know posters are hardly the canvas for an essay about this sort of thing, but is that really the only argument they could come up with? I only did politics for a year at A level, but my vague experience of voting systems could lead me to about five other arguments that would have fit nicely on a poster, and perhaps showed some, uh, I dunno, relevance.

For example, how about the problem that AV would be less likely to create a majority government. You could have something like "Hung Parliaments forever?" as a suggestion of uncertainty that would at least hold some legitimacy behind it. Or what about a picture of Nick Griffin smiling with the caption "AV... Making fringe parties win". It would be silly and hyperbolic, but again, there'd be a legitimate point made.

Instead, they've practically run away from AV, which I should be pleased about I guess. I'm firmly in support of voting reform, and I'd love to see them go further and implement my own version of PR, but that long-winded explanation is for another time.

My worry is though, that people will just say "Yeah, true that" and ignore the actual facts and mechanisms of the voting systems. It's a true shame, because when the referendum goes against AV, that could be the last attempt at reform for a very long time. Any party wishing to introduce will be under the burden of knowing that the people voted against it, and this could make it an area worth ignoring.

Anyway, I don't mind political posters, but I really don't like such a facile message. Make some sense next time, please.